Business

Facebook announced that it will acquire Atlas Ad Management Suite from Microsoft, to better help advertisers keep track of their ad spends, and what sort of returns they are driving.

This is what they had to say in favor of Atlas,

If marketers and agencies can get a holistic view of campaign performance, they will be able to do a much better job of making sure the right messages get in front of the right people at the right time. Atlas has built capabilities that allow for this kind of measurement, and enhancing these systems will give marketers a deeper understanding of effectiveness and lead to better digital advertising experiences for consumers.

Sony has officially announced the sale of its Sony City Osaki office in Tokyo for 111.1 billion yen ($1.2 billion) as part of its ongoing restructuring. However, it will continue to remain there for the next five years.

“Sony is transforming its business portfolio and reorganizing its assets in an effort to strengthen its corporate structure. This sale was conducted as a part of this reorganization,” an announcement read.

MasterCard has announced a cooperation with Indian mobile wallet provider Beam to offer pre-paid cards to the service’s 14 million customers and help reach the nation’s many “underbanked” citizens.

Beam is off to a strong start in India with its mobile payment solution, and its new partnership with MasterCard should give it more momentum. The companies plan to release the new mobile pre-paid cards in July and August.

To an outsider, it might seem surprising that a startup that has demonstrated agility and creativity – and enjoys the backing of investors – can fail. However, this happens more often that you’d imagine, and for a very simple reason – the inability to scale up effectively.

Ambarish Gupta, CEO of Knowlarity talks about the role of technology in scaling up.

Apps

Samsung revealed its new Samsung Wallet app during a developer conference yesterday at Mobile World Congress. The Wallet app is very much similar to Apple’s Passbook app for iOS allowing people to store things such as event tickets, boarding passes, membership cards, and coupons in one central location.

The Wallet app also provides time and location-based push notifications so that it can alert users as to when they can use the passes stored in their wallet. Read More.

Rovio announced “Angry Birds Toons” on its blog today describing the series as “an all-new animated series that throws the doors to Piggy Island wide open.”

We had written a piece for developers on the different ways to monetize their apps and maybe it is time to add another source to the list. Rovio is probably making the best of the opportunity. Like they say, make hay while the sun shines. Read More

The Line service can be used to make free calls and send free messages and the company says the Asha app will include one-on-one chats and stickers, but it doesn’t say if more sophisticated features will be present. It is also not clear if all Asha phones will support this app. Read More.

Speaking at the TED Conference in Long Beach, Calif., Brin told the audience that smartphones are “emasculating.” “You’re standing around and just rubbing this featureless piece of glass,” he said.

During his TED talk, Sergey Brin said the ideal search technology would surface information before a person had to ask for it, and that he has been working on the problem for 15 years. He thinks that the Google Glass is the first form factor that can deliver that vision.

Who would want a smartphone with a grayscale E Ink screen? Anyone who want days of battery life, superior outdoor readability and low cost should be interested in using the technology in a phone. At the Mobile World Congress, folks from LaptopMag got their hands on a prototype Android smartphone with an e-Ink screen and were blown away by just how light it was about how sharp text looked on its screen and how long it could last.

Samsung announced its latest product in the Note-range, the Galaxy Note 8.0. The device is expected to launch globally during the next quarter, however the company has only detailed its international model ahead of the World Congress Trade Show in Barcelona.

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Prateek is the Founder and Managing Editor of TheTechPanda. Apart from being a tech enthusiast, he is also an avid reader, passionate photographer and traveler. You can read more about him at About.me/PrateekPanda